Charlize Theron wears a Carl F. Bucherer Manero

Lorraine Broughton steps out of a car in dark glasses and a white shirt, and on the wrist above her studded driving glove sits a steel watch with a dark dial. Charlize Theron plays the MI6 agent in David Leitch's Atomic Blonde (2017), sent into Berlin in November 1989, days before the Wall comes down, after a KGB agent kills the British agent James Gascoigne and steals his watch, "which contains a microfilm document with a list of the names of every intelligence agent active in Berlin."

Carl F. Bucherer is in the film twice over. On Theron's wrist is the Manero AutoDate, which the brand's retail journal notes "is prominently featured in several scenes, including a fight scene in close-up detail." And inside the plot, as The Hollywood Reporter put it, "Two Carl F. Bucherer timepieces, the Manero CentralChrono and Manero Flyback, play a key role," with the CentralChrono traveling "through the whole movie; it literally plays a character." The placement ran through the director. Leitch had worked with the brand on the John Wick films, has worn its watches for years, and owns a Patravi TravelTec that also appears in the film. Daniel Bernhardt, the brand's ambassador since 2010, plays one of the assassins and wears the CentralChrono.

The film's most famous set piece is the stairwell fight, almost ten minutes presented as a single take. Carl F. Bucherer's own announcement, posted around the premiere, kept the rest of its role coy: watches from the Lucerne brand play an important part, it said, but "you'll have to watch the movie to find out more details."